“No, no,” he corrected me. “She despises the girl. Natalia is her name, by the way. Lourdes thinks Thomas is a fool who is throwing his life away,” he said, in the exact manner of his wife. The brief impression was so true to life I couldn’t help but giggle, especially as it was so odd to see the dramatic gesture and tragic face on Professor Johnston’s normally placid and amiable face. “The trouble is, you see, Natalia is exactly like Lourdes. It’s uncanny. Not physically, really. She’s very lovely, but not the great beauty Lourdes was at that age. But the attitude, the mannerisms. Lourdes thinks the girl is horrendous of course. Natalia responds in kind, and the claws come out whenever they’re in a room together. I really wouldn’t be surprised if actual blood was spilled before the wedding. It’s in December, by the way. Would you like to come?”
“Oh, that’s perfect! I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you, and I’d be honored to come. It’s just—” I couldn’t stifle my amusement at the mental image of cool, sophisticated Lourdes Johnston getting into a catfight with her youthful doppelganger.
“Laugh away, dear girl. Heaven knows I do, only please don’t let Lourdes or Thomas hear about it. I have every confidence that at some point Lourdes will go through a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn and take Natalia under her wing. Perhaps if there are grandchildren. But hopefully sooner than that. Natalia seems strong, and Lourdes likes strong women. It’s why she likes you, of course. Oh, he’s starting. Shhh.”
And the professor gave his rapt attention to Jack, leaving me to ponder this bit of information as Jack, finally free from the early questioner, brought up the first slide and walked to the lectern…
Where he stopped as he spotted me in the back row, and stared as if he’d forgotten about everyone else in the room.
He gave a distracted “um”. His mouth turned up at one corner in a tiny half smile and then the moment passed. He greeted the audience warmly and gave his presentation just as he had the last two times, smoothly and professionally. No doubt I was the only one who’d noticed the bobble at the start. Well, and obviously Professor Johnston, who patted my hand gently as Jack started to speak, but otherwise said not a word until the lecture was over.
After the session I waited for the room to clear, picking up Jack’s spare handouts and eventually wandering over to his computer once the crowd had dissipated and he stood talking to Dr. Johnston and a few others. I held my hands over the keyboard and mimed to Jack what I hoped was the universal gesture for “should I go ahead and shut this down?” He nodded, still engaged in discussion, and I turned off the projector, unplugging the computer from everything and closing the program. Jack’s wallpaper was the same on his laptop as it had been on his desktop at work—his friend Mario’s boy and two nephews, the boys that could have been his sons, on their horses.
But of course they aren’t his sons, I reminded myself, shutting the computer down and closing it. Glancing over at Jack and the professor, it struck me that they looked oddly similar, both leaning forward and smiling, intent but casual at the same time. Confident, likeable men who were used to having people respect their opinions and decisions. They also looked slightly conspiratorial, which made me wonder a bit what they were plotting.
Then Jack ran a hand over the back of his neck, stretching, and there, at his wrist, was a moonstone cabochon embedded in white gold. I forgot everything else for a few seconds in the flood of relief.
Coming to myself after my momentary lapse, I looked around for his laptop case and tucked the machine neatly away in its little padded compartment, along with the spare session handouts and some other pages of handwritten notes Jack had left on the lectern. All tidy and ready to go—and I really must not look over at Jack and grin like a fool at his cuffs.
Jack lifted the case out of my hand, hefting it easily. “Dr. Johnston tells me his wife wants to go dancing tonight. I told him I’m from Houston so I only know the two-step, the polka, the waltz and the chicken dance. But he insists that anybody can learn to samba. I’m thinking of challenging Lourdes. If I do successfully samba by the time the evening is over, she has to get up and do the chicken dance. So what do you say?”
I say this is the strangest double date ever. “That sounds wonderful.”
Chapter Nineteen
Jack made me pull my new dress out of the closet, insisting it was perfect for dancing. Insisting I wear it, actually, although I wasn’t exactly complaining. Mainly I was too busy admiring Jack’s suit, which was a dark charcoal with the most subtle gray pinstripe imaginable, and draped perfectly over his body.
“My other vice,” he said, when he caught me peeking at the lining of his jacket as it lay on the bed, tossed there while he fiddled with his tie in the mirror. “I had a few suits made in London while I was there. This was the most recent one, it’s the closest to still being in style I guess. Really the only one lightweight enough to wear here. Or back home, except in January or February.”
“You really had them made from scratch? Like, bespoke?” I tried to picture Jack standing while all those measurements were being taken, and realized it was no problem as long as I pictured him with a kind of childish glee at the absurdity of it all.
“Mm-hmmm. You get spoiled though. It’s like flying first class. You can never go back to coach after that. I can never buy suits off the rack again.”
“Let’s hope you never have to, unless you lose your luggage again sometime.” I tried to keep a solemn face but couldn’t hold it for long, and Jack smiled back affably. He really was like a giant kid about some things, I was starting to realize. Which was sort of endearing, given how very much like a grownup he was about so many other things. “You really like clothes, don’t you? You are straight, right?”
He shrugged, looking back into the mirror and undoing his tie with a grimace to start all over. “Guys don’t do it for me. And clothes are just equipment. You know…you want the right equipment to do a job, and you have to take care of the equipment. Well, in London I had this epiphany that for my job, the equipment was a really well cut, conservative suit and the right kind of tie. I hadn’t ever really cared much before then. Kept my shoes polished, that was about it, and only because my dad drummed that into my head from an early age.”
He finally achieved the magic proportions he’d been seeking for his tie—it looked identical to the previous two efforts to me, but what did I know?—and reached for his jacket, which settled easily and beautifully on his shoulders. I suddenly felt vaguely cheap looking next to him in my store-bought finery.
Until, that is, Jack looked over at me where I lay musing on the bed, and smiled that smile.
“You look amazing. I mean, you look amazing anyway, but that dress is just…” He slouched down onto the bed, disregarding the wrinkles it might create in his suit, and bent to kiss me very carefully on the lips. “I get why you’re wearing lipstick but I hate it. I always feel like I’m gonna end up smearing it everywhere.”
“It’s equipment,” I said with a smirk. “I’ll take it off later, as soon as I’m done using it.” I wasn’t feeling quite as amused as I let on. Even his chaste peck had caused the now-familiar burn to start up again. Was I that easy to program?
“Thank you, by the way. I really like these.” Jack sat up and toyed with his cufflinks, turning the stone on one to let the light play through it. “But when I saw you at the back of the room earlier, all I could think about was you on the beach in the moonlight. I almost had to take a short break before I could start the presentation.”
I chuckled, remembering the look on his face at that moment—it was something I thought I might like to remember forever. “I don’t think anybody noticed though. You covered well.”
The boyish grin was back again as Jack stood and took my hand, pulling me up and into a little spin before catching me in his arms for a deeper kiss. I didn’t want it to end, but eventually it had to. He used his finger to gently dab a tiny smear of lipstick from below my bottom lip.
“Let’s g
o dancing.”
* * * * *
Of course we went eating first, to a restaurant in Ipanema that must have carried at least six stars on a five-star rating scale. Everything was melt-in-the-mouth delicious—or perhaps I was just that hungry. It was local food, and after studying the menu awhile I finally just let Jack order for me, despite his grumbled reassurance that he wasn’t always planning to do the ordering for both of us.
His next whispered comment, that he was only sorry he wouldn’t get to feed me by hand like the other night, just made me blush and look over at the Johnstons with a gulp and a sheepish smile, like a guilty teenager. I felt like it must be blazing in neon across my body—“I am having wild sex with this gorgeous man nightly”. But evidently it wasn’t. Professor Johnston just smiled back and started asking about work, as if we were simply four reasonable adults eating dinner.
Lourdes seemed a bit less fraught this evening, and entertained us all with some amusing stories about planning Tom’s wedding, which sounded as though it was likely to be quite an extravagant affair. Had I not already heard her true opinion of her future daughter-in-law from her husband, I might not have caught the subtle innuendos, the damning by faint praise, that characterized her descriptions of the bride, the bride’s taste in clothes, the bride’s choice of flowers, the bride’s registry selections. I was tempted to think “poor Natalia”, but from Arthur’s interjected remarks, it sounded as though the bride was getting every bit of her own back from her future mother-in-law. It promised to be a highly entertaining event and I was glad Arthur had invited me.
Then I surprised myself by thinking of, and feeling a bit sorry for, Tom. He really wasn’t cut out to be caught between two women of this caliber, if what I remembered of him was accurate, and I hoped for his sake he didn’t get injured too badly in the crossfire. He should at least be able to enjoy his own wedding…
Which I realized Arthur was now discussing as though assuming Jack would also be in attendance.
I gave that some thought and then quickly shut down that line of thinking, as I realized if I kept going it was really only a matter of time before I started doodling “Mrs. John Benedict” on the tablecloth. We had only been going out—and staying in—for five days, after all.
After slowly getting to know each other for two years, and then spending ten and twelve hours a day together, five or six days a week, for the past month or so, my traitorous subconscious chimed in. Ordering all those lunches in so you could stay at the office and eat together while you worked wasn’t just about efficiency and productivity, was it?
Had we really been doing that? Manufacturing excuses to spend time together, even weeks ago?
I thought about the many late nights, the many working lunches and dinners, and just how often those meals had stretched out far longer than they needed to as we’d talked about things that had little to do with work. The environment and politics, of course. Those were good starting places because they were necessarily related to the job.
But looking back, I suddenly realized how often those had been only starting places. I knew things about Jack that I wasn’t even quite sure how I knew, when I actually thought back on those conversations. Not just his politics, but things like his views on religion—raised Methodist, but never went to church—and how many children he wanted—two, because he liked the idea of a big family but more than two per couple wasn’t in line with sustainability of the earth’s resources. Even things like the fact that he was two months overdue to have his teeth cleaned, but he always had his car serviced ahead of schedule. Well, that made sense—cars were equipment, not unlike his suits or his rock-climbing paraphernalia. Teeth were equipment too, but he didn’t look at it that way so he was taking them for granted.
Thinking about things like this always got me into trouble. When Jack next took a bite of his chop and seemed to be struggling with a piece of gristle, I looked at him sternly and said, out of the blue as far as he was concerned, “See? Teeth are equipment too. You should get them serviced regularly, just like your car.”
What was probably most telling was that, instead of giving me a look as though I’d gone crazy, he just kept chewing and then once he had swallowed said thoughtfully, “You know, you’re right. I hadn’t thought of it that way. Okay, I’ll call when we get back, I promise.”
And then he kept on eating. As if my bringing up something from a random conversation we’d had three weeks ago made perfect sense. As if I was now the person who was allowed to nag him about getting his teeth cleaned.
The Professors Johnston weren’t giving me funny looks either. They were giving me and Jack and one another very knowing looks, which I wished they would keep to themselves. But still it was a fantastic dinner, another little weight on one side of the scale that was rapidly tipping in favor of a return visit to this city despite its unfortunate beachiness.
On the other side of the scale, however, we had to go dancing next. The club was just a few blocks away and we arrived far too quickly in my opinion. Lourdes whipped her husband out onto the dance floor almost instantly, and Jack and I were first amused and then amazed at the way the pair moved. It was like water, that fluid and easy, and although it seemed to make perfect sense for Lourdes, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was like an optical illusion to see Arthur, my old professor, moving his hips that way.
Only after a few minutes did I notice their intense eye contact and feel something like embarrassment, even though they were only dancing. The room seemed to get a bit smaller and warmer all of a sudden. I had to divert my attention a bit, looking at some of the other couples on the moderately crowded floor.
We had found a table not too far from the dance floor, and from where I sat next to Jack I could feel the muscles in his leg moving as he caught the infectious beat. I felt the same way. It looked like fun, and they all made it look so easy. However, it also looked a far cry from a waltz or a two-step.
The song ended and as the Johnstons made their smiling, breathless way to our table, I felt Jack pick up the faster beat of the next song before he stood and offered his arm to Lourdes with a cordial little bow.
Baffled, I watched them make their way out to the center of the floor just as Dr. Johnston leaned over and said loudly over the music, “Jack wanted me to confess something on his behalf. He lied. He didn’t think you’d come if you knew you were the only beginner among us. He was going to break it to you more slowly, but Lourdes wanted him for the faster numbers. I can’t quite manage those like I used to.”
And even as he spoke they started dancing—and it was just about as far from the chicken dance as one could possibly get.
How could Arthur seem so unconcerned? How could he order drinks with such smiling equanimity? Jack was out there making fully clothed, vertical, mad, passionate love to his wife, and the professor was just watching as though it were no big deal.
I looked around the room again, dragging my eyes away from the pair of them through sheer force of will. Okay, that was better—clearly everyone else was doing it too.
And I realized, with the dull thud that comes when you realize you’ve been stupid, that obviously Marisa would have wanted to do it like everyone else—ergo, Jack would have had to learn how. He would have certainly had ample motivation, from everything he’d said about their relationship.
And I had ample motivation too, only partly because of Jack. Because it really did look like fun. Smoldering, sexy, slightly sweaty fun, to boot—all longtime favorites of mine. And if Jack, a Houston boy, could learn to move his hips like that…
I felt the gauntlet had been thrown down, and I had no choice but to accept the challenge. It was either that or watch Lourdes slither around the dance floor with my boyfriend all night.
Only later, while Lourdes and Jack were tag-teaming my samba lesson to the great amusement of Arthur, who sat observing, did I consider that I was no longer thinking of Jack as my boss first. Interesting.
Boyfriend, though? Lover se
emed like a more appropriate term, but it was always one that sounded a bit pretentious to me. Perhaps the term beau should be taken out of mothballs?
“Katie, take your shoes off and try just putting your feet on mine until you get the beat.”
“What am I, five years old?”
“Katie, shoes. Off. Now.”
No, I was fairly certain that one did not indulge in Domination and submission games with one’s beau. I took my shoes off and placed my bare feet on Jack’s shiny black shoes, marveling that the leather was so soft I could feel his toes moving beneath mine. But did one’s master ask one to dance on his feet?
“Now look at me. Eyes on mine, okay? Just feel the beat, don’t worry about memorizing the steps.”
“You’re lucky she’s such a tiny little thing, Jack,” Arthur commented dryly as Jack started to move to the music again.
“True. Imagine if I’d had to teach you that way,” Lourdes quipped, cracking us all up at the immediate image her words conjured—Arthur, trying not to crush her elegant feet while Lourdes struggled to lift them at all.
“Focus,” Jack said softly, and my eyes flew back to his. All that blue…and the most wonderful crinkles at the corners when he smiled, even when he didn’t quite smile with his mouth. I let myself stare into his eyes for a few minutes and once my mind was off my feet, I finally caught the basic steps, the syncopation, and was able to duplicate it for a few minutes before I started thinking too hard again and lost it.
“You just need to practice now. Learn the feet, then I will teach you about the hips,” Lourdes said blithely, sweeping Arthur off for another round of sultry dance floor doings.
“She could teach us all some things about the hips,” Jack admitted, waiting while I donned my shoes again and then pulling me back into his arms.
When in Rio Page 17
